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Flooded and Forgotten: How Vidarbha Pays for Failed Flood Control

Flooded and Forgotten: How Vidarbha Pays for Failed Flood Control
Flooded and Forgotten: How Vidarbha Pays for Failed Flood Control

The Vidarbha region has faced devastating floods almost every monsoon in recent years. Torrential rains have washed away houses, cut off villages, and even claimed lives.


72 hours of heavy rain in July 2025 killed 11 people and wrecked over 1,000 homes across six Vidarbha districts.


Hundreds of families were stranded in floodwaters that surged through Nagpur, Bhandara, Gadchiroli, Chandrapur and other areas. Similar scenes have played out repeatedly: dozens of lives lost each season as swollen rivers break their banks or flash floods hit without warning. In July 2022, two boys wading in a flooded stream and an entire family in a truck were swept away and drowned in Wardha and Gadchiroli districts.


By mid-July 2023, at least 16 people had died in rain-related incidents across Vidarbha, and nearly 4,500 houses were damaged in one division alone.

The damage is not limited to lives. Vast areas of farmland have been inundated. In August 2020, nearly 88,900 hectares of crops were flooded in Nagpur and adjoining districts. Months later, in July 2025, officials reported over 20,800 hectares of agricultural land under water in the Nagpur division, affecting about 29,920 farmers.


Crops such as cotton, soybean and grain were washed away, and cattle sheds were submerged. In one district alone, rescuers found fields transformed into lakes, forcing a funeral procession to wade through knee-deep water to reach a cremation ground. Educational institutions and markets routinely shut when river levels rise, disrupting normal life.


In Bhandara, for example, floodwater knee-deep in residential areas forced children to leave school, while in Yavatmal, two major roads were closed by a breaching river. The monsoon’s fury and limited defences mean that every year Vidarbha communities brace for new destruction.



Infrastructure and Coordination Gaps


Experts and officials point to glaring failures in flood management as root causes. The region’s drainage and water-control infrastructure is inadequate or neglected.


A government review in 2025 found that nearly 90% of small rainwater harvesting structures in Nagpur and Amravati divisions have fallen into disuse.

Originally meant to capture runoff, these decaying tanks and check dams now lie in ruins, unable to absorb any floodwater. At the same time, urban drainage is critically short. In Nagpur city, for instance, more than 75% of roads lack any stormwater drains.


Recent mass concreting of city streets has actually reduced drainage capacity: new cement roads were built without side drains or slopes, so rainwater simply pools on the surface and flows into homes.


City engineers admit there is no comprehensive map of the stormwater network, and that key areas flood year after year with no audit or upgrade plan in place. Residents complain that their “glittering cement roads” have become seasonal flood channels – a disaster waiting to happen every monsoon.


Beyond local drains, Vidarbha’s rivers present complex interstate challenges. Major river basins originate in Madhya Pradesh, carrying heavy rainfall from the Satpura hills into Maharashtra.


Several large dams, Sanjay Sagar, Gosekhurd, Chaurai, Totladoh (Pench), Rajeev Sagar and Upper Wardha lie upstream in Madhya Pradesh. When intense rain hits those catchments, dam gates must be opened, sending surges downstream into Vidarbha within a day or two.


In August 2020, the Chaurai dam in Chhindwara and others were full, forcing massive water releases. All 33 gates of the huge Gosikhurd dam on the Wainganga remained open during the deluge, flooding downstream villages in Gadchiroli.


Critics noted that Maharashtra had over 36 hours’ notice after the Rajiv Sagar dam began releasing water, yet no effective measures were taken to prepare for the flood wave. A state opposition leader pointed out that despite this warning time, local authorities had done nothing preventive, a lapse blamed on poor coordination between state governments. Dam operators, meanwhile, dispute these claims.


They argue that they followed reservoir rules under extraordinary conditions and kept some dams partly empty to give towns time to evacuate. But independent observers say the management of flood control is fragmented. The Central Water Commission issues forecasts and alerts days in advance, but state disaster offices say the warnings arrive too late for many villagers, especially when communication in remote areas is weak.

In sum, Vidarbha lacks many basic flood-prevention structures. There are virtually no dedicated embankments or spurs on many riverbanks. Drainage plans have lagged behind development. Even simple floodways and diversion channels are largely missing. When water surges, communities must scramble for boats and store-bought tarpaulins.


In the 2020 floods, for instance, more than 53,000 people had to be evacuated by air and boat without prior notice as rivers rose suddenly.


Schools and office buildings were hastily turned into camps. Local officials scrambled with hand-held megaphones to warn people, long after rivers had crested.

The pattern has not changed in subsequent years. Every flood reveals the same weak links: no buffer zones, no escape routes, poor early warning at ground level.


Financial and Human Costs


The absence of flood defences has an obvious toll on lives, and it also translates into repeated spending from the public purse. Each flood season now forces local and state governments to rush relief funds and compensation to the victims of disasters.


For instance, after the July 2025 floods, Maharashtra approved an emergency relief budget of ₹49 crore for house damage, allocating ₹15 crore specifically to Vidarbha’s Nagpur and Amravati divisions.

These funds are meant to rebuild homes destroyed or damaged by the rains. According to state norms, the government provides up to ₹1.2–1.3 lakh for each fully collapsed house, and up to ₹4,000 for each partially damaged home. In practice, this means millions of rupees paid out whenever there is major flooding.


Similarly, cattle owners are compensated for lost livestock, and traders and farmers receive small grants for losses of tools or seedlings.


The agricultural losses alone have mounted into the crores. By 2023, nearly 54,000 hectares of farmland in Vidarbha were reported under floodwater. The yields washed away cost farmers lakhs per acre, requiring government insurance claims or loan waivers.


In a storm episode, the state shifted nearly 2,800 farmers to safety in flooded fields around Yavatmal and Akola. The cost of such evacuations, temporary shelters and emergency rations is also borne by taxpayers.

Taken together, recent figures are staggering. A 2021 government report noted that since 2019, Maharashtra had paid over ₹14,000 crore in direct compensation for climate-related disasters, a sum equal to almost a fifth of the state’s annual fiscal deficit.


Floods and heavy rains were a large part of this burden. In 2020 alone, the state spent about ₹13,000 crore coping with extreme weather, which included ₹4,000 crore on repairing roads, bridges, power lines and water supply networks damaged by floods.


The expectation was that a chunk of this spending would go into new drainage and flood-control works, but in many flood-prone parts of Vidarbha, those projects have yet to materialise.


Local leaders and civil society groups note that Vidarbha routinely receives special appeals for aid whenever the rains hit. In July 2023, for example, the deputy chief minister announced aid packages and extended deadlines for distributing food and cash to the worst-hit families in Yavatmal and Akola.


By contrast, preventive investments receive far less attention. Some have pointed out that Vidarbha’s allocation in the state budget for flood prevention is historically lower than for regions that suffer drought, leaving it perennially unprepared.


The result is a vicious cycle. Each flood season, the region endures tragic losses, lives, homes and harvests, and the government must fork out relief funds yet again.


Families in the affected areas speak plainly of the burden. They lose their belongings, miss work or school, and then wait for government grants.


A deputy engineer in Nagpur noted that on days with more than 100 mm of rain, rescue calls can reach dozens, straining fire and health services. In the aftermath, tens of crores are promised as aid, but rebuilding takes months. Each time, local authorities and aid agencies tally houses broken, cattle lost, and farmers ruined.


Meanwhile, the promise of compensation offers cold comfort. A 2021 analysis warned that while millions go out as flood relief, the true economic loss (businesses shut, harvests gone, workers idle) is far higher and grows each year of inaction.


That observation has proved true for Vidarbha. Without robust flood defences or drainage systems, ordinary rainfall events repeatedly turn into catastrophes.


For villagers or small-town residents, every monsoon now means scrambling against a familiar foe. And for taxpayers, every storm means writing another multi-crore cheque in relief, with few durable results to show for it.


Each flood in Vidarbha makes one thing clear that failures in infrastructure and planning have turned the monsoon into a disaster rather than a boon. The cycle of evacuation and rebuilding continues without pause.

Until stronger safeguards are in place, the people of Vidarbha will find themselves paying the price, in lives and money, for each rainy season that arrives.


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